Operation: Celebi
by Hobbit
Summary: When the Elite Four take it upon themselves to take down Team Rocket, they end up getting more than they bargained for.


Thank you for reading my humble fic...be aware that this is one half of the prologue...There's more where this came from. I have the first three chapters written up (each about 20 pages...but don't worry, I'll split it up...:D). I decided to do this prologue as part of a rewrite.

So....without further ado, onto the prologue!

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In the small forests surrounding Fuschia City, years before the Safari Zone would ever be created, a small boy liked to play. He explored the forests, made friends with Chansey, Kanghaskan, Tauros, and Ponyta. He scampered with the Rattata, splashed with the Magikarp, and frolicked with the Stantler.

He took in the world through his silver-green eyes with all the wonder and awe that only small children can have. He could spend hours examining a small thing, then not go near it for a week, and then spout off every fact that he had noticed about it when questioned. A bright child, his parents and their peers predicted that some day he would become a Pokémon Professor.

But this was before his particular talents for utilizing Pokémon on a battlefield were noticed. The child, due to his knowledge of Pokémon, was able to predict, in most cases, what an undomesticated Pokémon would do in many situations, and how domesticated Pokémon would react when faced with the challenge of either a domesticated or undomesticated Pokémon.

The child grew wealthy (for a nine year old) by betting marbles, string, and other childish currency on Pokémon matches. There was rarely a match that went by that he didn't bet on, and it was a rare match when he was proven wrong.

He didn't have many friends with the other children his age, but he didn't mind. All he cared about was Pokémon. As he grew older, he spent more and more time outdoors. When he became sixteen, he was actually spending entire weeks in the wilderness. He would only have two more years before his parents would let him begin his journey, when everything changed in his life.

The child, now a teenager, was roaming through the forests as he usually did, and was looking for his Chansey friends. They had always before met him at the creek's bend, but this day, they had not. Nor any of his other friends. In fact, he hadn't seen a Pokémon for at least a mile of traveling.

Suddenly, he heard the loud crack of a gunshot. The child froze. What was happening? He had heard gunshots before, certainly. At the gun range and during Stantler season, but it wasn't Stantler season, and he was miles away from the gun range. Suddenly, another shot rang out from his right, and then another from his left.

With a feeling of dread in his stomach, the boy realized that he was caught in a cross-fire. He dove to the ground, terrified, and looked around. A man wearing a strange military uniform came out from behind a tree, and charged towards the boy, a fully automatic assault weapon spitting metal. A shot rang out, and the man fell, a red splotch beginning to spread across his chest.

As the man hit the ground, not a foot away from the boy, a Pokeball fell out of the man's pocket. Without thinking, the boy took ahold of it, and palmed it.

A dark man in a black jumpsuit peered out from behind a tree, then came out into the open, and the boy could see the red "R" emblazoned across his chest. He was holding an ugly-looking handgun. "CLEAR!" he shouted, and hurried over to the man, and pawed through the dead man's pockets, "Not here!" he shouted out into the forest.

The black man looked at the boy, "You all right?" he asked.

The boy swallowed hard, and nodded, pushing his feet together, and smoothly sliding the Pokeball into one of his pockets without it being seen. He wasn't sure why he had done so, but he had a feeling that the man shouldn't see the Pokeball. "I'm all right," he said, shaken. He pointed at the fallen soldier, "But who was he?"

The dark man scowled, "A villain. A murderer. A thief. He's a Tintian, and he was trying to destroy Fuschia City. He had stolen an item that was crucial to-"the man cut himself short, "You all right?" he asked brusquely. At the boy's nod, the dark man picked the other man's corpse up, hefted him over his shoulder, and trotted into the brush without another word.

The boy, still stunned, walked back to his house, and up to his room. He was certain that whatever was in the Pokeball, the dark man had wanted. And he had a feeling that the dark man would have used whatever it was for dark and twisted purposes. He closed and locked the door to his room, and looked around. He picked up one of the many plants in the room, and put it in front of the window. The vine blocked any view coming in from the outside.

The boy took a deep breath and took the Pokeball out of his pocket. It was stained with blood, but several words could be deciphered on its surface. "The Dragon's wrath has yet to be spent, and the Dragon's lance is upon the anvil." Frowning, Lance tried releasing whatever was in the Pokeball.

A bright red stream of light shot out from the Pokeball, and formed into a draconic shape. With a roar, it bellowed aloud a name that the boy could not understand. It looked around, and the boy could see that it was wounded, and looked mad. The creature glared at him, opened its mouth, and a hail of fire erupted from the deep confines of its throat.

Outside the house, the neighbor's Meowth was digging in the boy's mother's rose gardens again, and the boy's father's Growlithe was beginning to stalk it. The Growlithe was just taking a deep breath to fire a flamethrower, when the house erupted outwards in a giant gout of flame.

The Meowth was caught in the head by a flying piece of wood, and was carried across the street by the shockwave. The Growlithe, however, was not so lucky. It had been facing the house, and a piece of wood had flown down its throat. It was dead of suffocation within minutes.

Observers that day often swore that they saw a reptilian shape fly up through the center of the inferno, and disappear into the sky. Most have discarded this bit of rumor, though, and say that it was probably a leak in one of the main gas lines, and a stray spark caused the explosion.

But if you ever get down into Fuschia City, you will find some old-timers who swear by their lives that they saw a creature rising up from the explosion, and that it looked like a dragon.

The truth of the matter, only one man can tell. And he doesn't even remember being there that day.

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A young woman grinned as she accepted yet another roll of cash, "Come on," she said, grinning, pushing her icy blue hair out of her face, "You know you bet more than that." Her green eyes were aflame with the passion of her favorite hobby, Pokémon battling. She had been undefeated for the past four years. While she was only ten, the age that most children began battling in Kanto, she had been training her Ice team for years.

She had always loved the Ice type, and always would. Many would never understand it, because Ice types were rare, and were weak to the Fire types that many trainers started with. The girl didn't care however. She was from Nuschantz, and had always dreamed of someday battling in the famed Indigo League. She had scraped up enough money back at the ski resort back home, and had caught a Lapras. She had trained it carefully, following the rules in the Pokémon raising and battling books she had gotten for Christmas and her birthday for as long as she could remember, and, when she challenged her first opponent, had won easily.

Her mother had chided her later for beating a guest, telling her that it might make trainers not want to come to the ski resort anymore, but then the number of trainers that came suddenly increased. It seemed that a lot of people had heard of her, and all wanted to see exactly how good a trainer was, that was below the Indigo League's minimum age requirement that came from a country without a league.

She had won over seventy-five percent of her matches back home, and now had a full belt team. All this money now would be spent on better, custom Pokeballs for her Pokémon. When she had told some people that, a rich kid in the group had laughed at her, and told her that that was stupid, and that she should catch more Pokémon.

Lorelei, for that was her name, had merely glared at the kid, and told him that she was satisfied with the Pokémon she had. The kid had laughed at her, and it was only about two seconds before she had decked him. The rich kid had looked surprised that such a small girl was so strong, and had promptly challenged her to a battle.

Her blue eyes twinkled as she accepted two more rolls of cash from people who had bet against her, and stuck them in her pocket. She looked around at the small crowd that had gathered around her. "Come on," she said, grinning, holding out her hand to the rich kid, who was now sporting a black eye, "Cough it up. You owe me two hundred more."

The kid glared at her, and shoved up his watch, which probably could have bought a sports car, and stuffed his hand into her pocket. Grudgingly, he pulled out two more rolls of cash, and handed them over. Lorelei grinned, and looked around, "Does anybody else want to fight?"

An older boy, with a girl that had some kind of uniform on-probably a cheerleader, Lorelei guessed-stepped forward, and grinned. Probably some kind of jock. "I challenge you to a Pokémon Battle. Three versus three, one at a time, no time limit."

Lorelei grinned. "I accept. Jynx, go!" She snatched the Pokeball from her belt and threw it into the air. It flew up four feet, stopped, swiveled, and a jet of ruby-red light emanated from its center, and between Lorelei and the jock. The dark outline of her female Pokémon began to come into view. First its dress, then its arms, and finally its long, yellow hair. Lorelei reached out without looking and caught the Pokeball, and reattached it to her belt. Her Jynx, Snuggle Cakes-named when she was still a Smoochum-whirled around, looking for its opponent.

The jock grinned. "Charmeleon," he called out, "Go!" he threw his Pokeball straight at her Ice and Psychic dual type, and stopped, a foot away, as if it had hit something. The sphere released its own broad red beam of light, and a small lizard, bipedal, glared at her Jynx. The lizard, the end of its tail aflame, scratched the small horn growing out of the back of its head, behind its head, and looked to its trainer, then back to the Jynx, jetting out a small stream of flame from its mouth.

Lorelei grinned, and glanced behind her. "I'll bet my entire winnings that I'll beat this guy." Some people behind the jock jeered at her, and raised up rolls of cash to take her bet. The people behind Lorelei, however, cheered, as they had seen her fight many times. Once the bets had been squared away, Lorelei grinned at the jock. "The Battle begins now." She said, "Jynx, Lovely Kiss!"

She read the horror in her opponent's eyes as he realized what she was trying to do. While fire type moves were lethal against ice types, his Charmeleon couldn't use those fire types if it were asleep. And, Lorelei thought, grinning, she could use her Pokémon's Psychic type moves to faint the Pokémon. Then, if he sent out another Fire type, she'd use the same strategy until her Jynx was fainted. Then, she'd send out her Lapras.

This guy was doomed.


End file.
